Oxford Air Training
 

So which would you go for and why??

Would just like to hear some pro's and con's for either of the schemes. Basically comparisions

(e.g ferrari or porshe).........................ferrari!!! :D

What do you mean when you say schemes like CTC are expensive? To me, the portion you are responsible for is dirt cheap by comparison to other avenues.

In Canada I would be expected to unload at least $50 000 (£25 000) to get all my licensing out of the way, then do whatever it takes to build my hours and experience if I were looking at the big boys.

Am I missing something?

Have you considered FTE Jerez?... Airlines sniff there to.....:ok:

Hey.. ive looked at both options with CTC, Oxford and Cabair. I have found that oxford has all the pro's. Cabair and CTC only train you to be a pilot then pretty much leave you in the lurch to find a job.. with Oxford they train you to the highest standards then find you a job and place you with an interview.. they garentee an 98% chance of getting a job.. the 2% were people who didnt have English rites to live here or correct paper work.. Oxford is slightly more expensive then anywere else.. but you get the status coming from them. If you want a great company to work for I.E British Airways.. they only take Oxford students and this applies to many other airlines. So if you want a status.. highly paid job.. and train with the best school.. i recommend Oxford.. im meant to be starting in september.. any more questions add me on msn at.. [email protected]

Hope i helped!
Dan

The CTC scheme does the very opposite of leaving you in the lurch to find a job! It only recruits cadets which it WILL place with an airline at the end of the training because thats when CTC get paid by the airline. Id be far more suspicious of Oxford who want as many wallets through the door as possible.

Well.. i disagree.. Oxford is by far the place to be.. and you get status.. airlines love it.. and if it gets me a job.. then im not complaining! lol

Dan

Handbags at dawn ladies!!!

There are 4 CAA approved integrated courses, though CTC comes near enough.

They are Cabair, OAT, FTE and the new one launched in Perth with WAAC. I'm half way through applying to the latter 3 and all seem to be quite impressive with their own strengths.

lol.. but not CTC then.. You know when you walk in somewhere.. and just feel its the rite place to be.. i got that from Oxford.. i felt at home.. and felt its the professional kinda place where i would enjoy learning.. its got the best statistics.. ok its a little more expensive.. but you get what you pay for.

Good luck with applying!

Dan

"They guarantee you a 98% chance of getting a job"....

Hmmmm.....

:rolleyes:

Is there actually such a thing as a 98% guarantee???

Sounds like marketing brainwashing to me

CTC will place you in an airline. All the guys I trained with went direct into EZY.

It is more of a lottery with the others.

But, it is much harder to get into CTC than OATS or Cabair.

yea i gotta agree, madmandan really sounds like he's fallen for the marketing stuff hook line and sinker lol.

Firstly OAT do NOT guarantee you a job at all. I do agree that I think they're a very professional school who are well respected and provide good training.

CTC is also a good company too, they are very well respected and also provide excellent training. I think its important to realise that the two companies provide different services. CTC are providing cadets to the airlines, in that there customers are the airlines, not the cadets. OAT is purely a training provider and as such OAT is providing the training TO the cadets ready for them to find their own jobs (with some help from oat of course, but thats all it is, HELP.)

In terms of financial benifit I don't think there is much difference between the two courses. both cost around £60k ish. The difference is that with OAT is that if you get a job you would enter on a full FO pay, which is substantially bigger then the cadet pay that CTC cadets will get frm their airlines, altho to balance it the CTC then get the airlines to pay for their trainig, so it all is about even, except for the fact that the CTC cadets will be bonded to their airline for 7 years.

I don't think there is much difference between the schools to be honest. In one way CTC is better since it is the closest thing you can get to having a guaranteed job, however OAT will also give you an excellent chance, especially with the industry improving as it is at the moment. I tried for CTC and failed at stage 4 unfortuantly, I am now planning on going to OAT. I not that bothered that I failed CTC and I am just as happy to be going to OAT, altho I would be just as happy if I were going to CTC. Just remember its a means to an end, if you try hard enough then whatever way you choose to get your licence then you will get there in the end.

Good luck to all wannabees!!!

What a load of tosh! I am a former FTE jerez student and i work for BA. Got in via the SSP scheme...marketing tripe...:yuk:

don't forget that BA also turn down Oxford graduates...

I'd like to point out to everyone that what madmandan has said is NOT what OAT is marketing. When I have spoken to them they have been nothing short of totally honest with me. They have NEVER said that BA only take their grads etc just as they have NEVER guranteed a job.

thanks for all the information. Like with most things in life people like different things to others and ways in which things are done.

I expected there to be a difference in opinion ;) but thats what I wanted. People to back to the goods and the bads for each company.

What particularly invites me to CTC is the cadet wings scheme. For people like me who have little or no flying experience.

This obviously makes it stand out from the others. Do oxford have a "starting from scratch" course? I am unable to find it on the website.

Anyone with any opinions on any of the schemes feel free to express your views.

both CTC and oxford have ab initio courses.

Look on oats website for the Airline pilot preparation course. It is their integrated course.

CTC wings is a very similair course but has more hours. CTC is also very hard to get onto, around 2% of applicants actually get to start the course, as opposed to 25%-40% of OATs.

ahhhhhhhhh thats the one. I presumed for an airline properation course you would have already needed a PPL at least or someone. OK thats a big eye opener thanks

I suggest you go to one of OATs seminars. You get to look round the school and get a feel for the place, it can tell you much more then we can and you can make your own opinions!

Could someone give me some more information around which course works out the most cost effective?

From what i can make out you need a loan for all of them £50-60K, but the difference being that with CTC if you are placed with an airline they pay this off (£1k a month) over 7 years on top of your base salary.

How does this compare to what you would earn if employed after completing say the OAT course?

To match this payment you would need to earn an extra £15,400 (gross) a year. Is this realistic? Or is the only benefit with this route that you are not tied in for 7 years?

The difference with OAT is that you would be paid a full FO salary as opposed to the cadet salary of CTC. for example the cadet salary may be 21k but then 12k for the loan repayments from CTC. A cadet from OAT would be paid the full 30k+ salary.

Don't forget that after Oxford you may still have to pay for your own type rating and/or be bonded to the company you eventually go to.

There seem to be a fair few differences between Oxford and CTC, Oxford certainly has the prestige and recognition that probably beats ctc in the aviation world but CTC is becoming increasingly recognised as a top training school. Both OAT and CTC have excellent groundtraininig and flying training scores and both a well respected as schools who will produce top quality pilots. The selectino process for CTC is more difficult and competitive than the process to get into OAT but this is largely to do with the financing of the CTC scheme. Rather than getting the £50000 secured loan you need to get into OAT, CTC has a sceme whereby you do need a £60000 loan but it's unsecured and the airline eventually pays it back to you at £1000 a month for 7 years as has already been mentioned. This does mean you're bonded to an airline for 7 years but 7 years isn't that long and if you're wanting to be a pilot then I don't see what's wrong with being bonded for that period of time. Both OAT and CTC seem to help find their cadets jobs though they do it in different ways. It's blatantly in the best interest of the school to get their pilots into jobs as being able to say 'we have a 98% success rate' is going to convince more people to apply. I hope this is a more balanced arguement than madmandan's 'oxford are the one and only' approach. However, I would like to say that Oxford's food is disgusting! :ugh:

Chocky

I went to OAT to do the pre APP integrated course and it was really very good. I finished and went off to CTC to do a 737 type rating and it was also very good.
Point of this post.....both schools are really good and it dosen't really matter where you do your training just so long as you manage to get yourself a job at the end.

Very Interesting topic!

I know this thread was specifically for CTC and OAT. However, i am surprised FTE didn't crop up into it at any point.

What's the census on them in comparison to OAT?

Any opinions?

as a graduated CTC cadet, I am now working alongside OAT guys in my job and the CTC/Oxford banter goes back and forth. At the end of the day, and as most people on this thread realise, they are very similar courses in terms of quality of training (at least that is the feedback we have from line trainers).

The two schemes are also similar in that the FTO take ~£60k of your money over a year or so, and the selection processes ensure that only candidates who are likely to succeed will be taken on - in my view this disregards the 'Oxford only want your money' view to a certain extent. The CTC bond is also quite tax-efficient in that only the interest on the loan is taxable.

With regards to a job at the other end, I know my OAT colleague was kinda in the right place at the right time but some of his course-mates are still looking for employment. Whereas at CTC, they only receive a fee for the training when employment is secured so it's in their interests to find you a job.

And lastly, CTC have placed several cadets with BA this year.

I hope this is useful to those looking to make a decision.

Both come with a huge health warning.

CTC are now demonstrating that they consider themselves to be the abettors for the industry. What they say goes and if they do not like you as a candidate that precludes you from a great many jobs. The reality is that they cannot be impartial and the legality/morality of their position wrt judging "the best candidate" is shakey.

Several of the CTC candidates in my airline are considered to be jumped up little S/O's that need to learn a thing or two. Arrogance/confidence without experience is lethal. Most learn the hard way.

Given the state of play wrt terms and conditions vs costs of training, etc. you would need to have your head examined to get into flying.

Ask the EPST guys whom owe £90K! :yuk:

Sorry did not mean to "bum you guys out". Just information really.

I went to CTC for the 737 type rating not by choice but because that's where my airline sends it's people for type ratings.

I have done 3 type ratings and found CTC totally appalling, the CBT is so out of date and incorrect to the aircraft you will be doing the exam on and the attitude of some of the instructors sucks, I had many run-ins with them over the standard of the course.

I felt sorry for the cadets with only 250 hours going from a Kartana to a 737, they were getting totally lost in the sim and a few of them struggled with the line training and were chopped and why because none of the sim instructors have any standard way of operating, we had 15 different ways of rotaing and landing the aircraft and you very rarely had the same instructors and some would scream at you for doing something wrong which was correct the previous day with a different instructor. Several times I asked them to stop the sim and either change their attitude or get me another instructor because I would not put up with it :mad: .

Take my advise avoid this place if you can!

And that's the bottom line coz Stone Cold said so!

Stone Cold, you've just got to smallow that treatment mate. It's not right but it happens. I've spent 4 years with the RAF and its just the same.

AMiller

"Stone Cold, you've just got to smallow that treatment mate"

What exactly is smallow? And what other B.S do you have to spill? The gulf of difference between the RAF or CTC is plain, as Mr Stone Cold points out, CTC is generally gash. And in the RAF, the queen and I pick up the tab.

If I'm taking a hit in salary on one of these TRSS schemes in other words I'm paying for it, why should I put up with being spoken and shouted at and such poor teaching ability. I'm a paying customer and if I'm not happy I'll bloody tell them.

I was a instructor for a couple of years teaching people to fly and I was a Captain within a regional airline and I would never dream of talking to any of my students, first officers, cabin crew or even the cleaners the way I got talked to at CTC.

The cadets who were on my course seemed to be in some form of fear that if they spoke up CTC could finish their career but i'm not a cadet i've been flying for 10 years and will not lay down for CTC's huge ego they have devolped.

I have complained to my current airline about the poor quality of training and they are aware of the situation and are not to happy with the quality themselves.

this has really thrown the cats amongst the pigeons!

It seems strange that there should be such a negative attittude after all the good things we have heard so far.

Its like two opposite ends of the scale.

I can't imagine that it is as bad as it is made out to sound. I'm sure not every cadet that goes in there gets talked to like a piece of crap. Surely we would have heard about it on some topics on here.

Not so much with the ground instructors (you never really see them), it is mainly the sim instructors with a attitude problem not all of them but most of them, all but 1 on my course don't know about the Airbus guys they may be different.

I understand that CTC was a good training company years ago but I think it's all gone to their head!

Another thing that would make some of us experienced guys laugh was the school report since we are treated like children, regardless of the performance of the cadet he would always generally get a glowing report with good progress ticked despite taking 30 minutes to get a GPWS recovery correct because they kept overstressing the aircraft or landing to the side of the runway and this was generally withheld from the report, where as the experienced guys regardless of their performance would only get a normal progress at best with lots of things written up in the report saying this was wrong that was wrong despite how insignificant it was. I know that CTC would prefer the cadets and I understand why they always had glowing reports it's because the cadets are a product of CTC.

After CTC the cadet will feel on top of the world, he/she has had a excellent report and praise from the instructors. Then they go to the airline for base training just before the line training and that's when the problems start. All of a sudden the cadet realises things are not going well when they are on their 14th circuit and they should have finished by their 8th circuit, some don't even complete the base training because the training capatin needs to get other guys through and they are sent back to the sim for further training, their confidence has taking a bit of a hit and they struggle through the line training and again sent back to the sim for more training and eventually some of them were chopped with the cadet wondering what went wrong since they had such good reports from CTC.

Another thing that amazed me was that smoke in the cockpit was not taught in the sim only discussed which is not good enough. Smoke in the cockpit is one of the most scariest things that can happen, it was ok for me I have seen it and practiced it many times in the sim from my previous company but when I asked why it was not being shown to the cadets because I thought it was vital for them to go through the excercise to see what it's like and how difficult it is to see the instruments I was given a totally lame excuse that if they did it would set off the fire alarms in the building what total bo!!ocks. If this happens in real life and the cadets are inexpericened then the captain will feel very alone in dealing with the situation. As many captains that I know will always say "cadets are good at pushing buttons but when the sh!t hits the fan and they are knocked of the rails a little bit you can find yourself on your own".

I don't blame the cadets and I'm not having a go at them they were good guys and girls on my course but I think it is in the interest of the cadet that the training provider should pracitce has many types of emergencies as possible to prepare the inexpericend cadet to be able to deal with potential emergencies that may appear on the line and that the sim instructors started teaching to operate the aircraft in a standard way rather than have their own way of doing it.

Very poor in my opinion!

Stonecold,

Are you sure your not a bit bitter because maybe you didn't get such a glowing report?

Are you sure your not a bit annoyed at the fact a cadet with 250 hours on the "kartana" did a bit better than you in the sim?

You paint a picture that every cadet goes to an airline and gets completely out of his/her depth, put back in the sim and even chopped.

This is obviously not true, so there must be some reason for your outburst.

Don't want to be rude,

but where you getting 60 grand from for Oxford?

Mr Stone colds views are not unique to pilots within established airlines. CTC seems to have lost its way and are starting to be a liability to the industry, particularly to pilots. Got to say if I went down there for a type change etc and they started pratting about, I'd read them the news in English.

Legally and morally they are on very thin ice.

I'm glad to see Oxford's marketing department has got a real tight grip on madmandan1. So much so he's blinkered to the rest of the world :cool:

Mooney12 I'm not bitter about a stupid report, I have to much experience to care less, I know my ability.

With regards to the cadet doing better than me in the sim re-read my post and you will find the cadet was struggling not by their own fault just the poor teaching practices at CTC, this is my point CTC leave a lot of things out which are very important for a INEXPERIENCED cadet to learn and practice, it seemed regardless of the performance of the cadet they would get a excellent report which was given to the airline and why? I will say it again, the cadet is a product of CTC, if CTC was to send cadets to airline with reports of a few problems encountered in the sim that airlines may take it's business elsewhere.

For your information on several occasions in a 4 hour sim slot I only got a hour and the cadet got the rest because they were having a few problems! not their fault just not taught very well because the instructors don't stick to SOP's they teach things their way and on one occasion I had to give the cadet some guidence because they were getting rattled by the instructor who was loosing patience with them.

And yes all cadets on my course went back to the sim for some additonal training and some were chopped!.

Mooney12 if you are or were a cadet take my advice you don't know it all, I have been flying for over 10 years and I still have lots to learn. Don't be arrogant you have 2 cups one filled with luck and the other one is empty on experience and what you need to do is fill up the cup of experience before the cup of luck runs out.

And that's the bottom line coz Stone Cold said so!

Just a word of caution, at the Airline I work for I don't know of anyone lucky enough to go "back to the sim" if they didn't make the grade by the end of line training.

This is all very intresting but a little one sided with respect to CTCs type rating training. If they are any Wings Cadets out there like "no sponcer" who are going through sim training, have completed line training and have been placed with an airline their comments would be useful

Any offers????????????????????????